In a court dispute with his neighbours over three feet of ground between their £1 million homes, a businessman who was fired from Alan Sugar’s “The Apprentice” is involved.
David and Isabel O’Brien are suing Alex Britez because of a narrow entrance between their homes in Westwood Park, on the border of Dulwich and Forest Hill, and Alex starred in the seventh season of the BBC show in 2011.
The house where Mr. Britez now resides was once owned by his mother, Mary Britez.
In 2015, the 52-year-old builder Mr. O’Brien and his 47-year-old wife, a tax director, moved into the four-bedroom semi-detached home next door.
According to their attorney Howard Smith, the O’Briens’ back yard and garage are accessible through a small, gated corridor that divides the two homes.
Due to damp concerns in Mr. Britez’s residence, the surface of the tunnel had been dug down to a depth of a few inches along the length of his wall in 2007.
The neighbours had been friendly at first, but a fight broke out in 2018 after Mr. O’Brien’s stepfather fell into a trench.
The court was informed that Mr. O’Brien had advised installing a metal grate over the trench to make it safer while still shielding Mr. Britez from moisture problems.
However, Mr. Britez opposed the idea, sparking a full-fledged legal dispute about who is the rightful owner of the three foot wide corridor.
The O’Briens assert that they own the entire route.
However, Mr. Britez contends he owns half of the land and is currently the head of sales for a significant real estate development company.
According to the 39-year-attorneys, old’s the passageway’s width is partially owned by Mr. Britez because the line between the properties runs somewhere along its midway.
The O’Briens have also filed a second legal claim, contending that the trench is hazardous and that Mr. Britez is responsible to make it safe if it is determined that he owns a portion of the land.
On the BBC programme, business tycoon Lord Sugar referred to Mr. Britez as a “excellent talker,” and he described himself as “ambitious, driven, and extremely focused” after beginning his career as a teaboy for an estate agent and moving up to managerial positions.
The trench, which the barrister described as “quite random,” reduces the usable width of the passageway, yet Mr. Britez and his mother, who commissioned the construction while she owned the house, wanted it remain open, according to the lawyer.
The surface of the route is now extremely narrow and unsafe as a result, he said. “Something must be done,” she said.
Because the route was used for a very long time [before the trench was excavated], Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien want to be able to use it safely.
They do understand why Mr. Britez wants to prevent a repetition of the moisture, though.
In his testimony, Mr. O’Brien stated that he did not consider for even a moment the possibility that he might not be purchasing a property that came with ownership of the entire tunnel next to it.
He testified in court that the neighbours were initially cordial to one another, that there was no dispute over who owned the passageway and that the dialogue had centred on making it safe rather than discussing the location of the boundary.
As someone who fixes damp problems for a living, he claimed, “I was made to believe that Britez had a damp problem and could see no problem in addressing it.”
In the garden, we had a debate about how to solve the issue. Alex was pleased that my solution was a decent one at the time.
No mention of a boundary was made. Making it safe was the main goal.
“I was referring to immediately filling and securing the hole. Because I didn’t want anyone else to fall into the hole, it just needed to be completed more quickly.
Mrs. O’Brien continued, “We were just trying to make the place secure,” adding that she never believed there to be a “boundary issue.”
Given that the corridor serves just as a method to get to our garage and backyard, it makes complete sense for us to be the ones who own it.
The property line, according to Mr. Britez’s attorney Simon Brilliant, is somewhere in the middle of the corridor, not along the side of his wall.
He contends that the most likely line of the genuine boundary is an old wall buried beneath the surface of the corridor, implying that a portion of its breadth belongs to Mr. Britez.
He informed the court that the former owner of the property next door had consented to such while enabling the trench to be dug.
The divide was meant to be permanent, he claimed, and that was the excavation’s sole goal.
There was no indication that anyone at the time thought it would be filled quickly or at all.
It is sad and disheartening that they have chosen to assert ownership of the disputed land years after having been informed in the most definite terms prior to their purchase that they do not.
They were content to live in a system where they were prohibited from using the dug land.
They didn’t raise the issue of the disputed land’s ownership until the summer of 2018.
While denying that it was dangerous, he said that Mr. Britez had previously offered to install railing down the middle of the passageway to prevent anyone else from falling in.
Mr. Brilliant said, “Given that there was no accident between 2007 and 2018, it is claimed that the contested ground is not risky.”
As long as reasonable precautions are taken when walking through the corridor, it is completely safe.
Mary Britez also testified in court that there had always been a space between the house she had previously occupied and the “boundary wall” that ran down its middle.
The trial goes on.